March is done! Whenever Spring break falls always feels like a weirdly long and short month all at once. Maybe it’s the residual trauma of marking when the world shut down? Maybe it’s just the stage we are in with early school age kids? Here’s how my March went and what I’m focusing on for April:
MARCH MONTHLY GOALS
Find New Doctors and Schedule Annual Doctor Appointments: Progress here.But ooooof does this take a long time. So many places not accepting new patients or don’t accept our insurance or would not allow us to schedule simultaneous appointments for kids meaning my husband would have to take time off work for childcare as we brought one kid in at a time
Purge Subscriptions and Email Lists: Lots of progress here. bye bye endless ads, even of companies I really like. I need the brain space that comes from not having to think about your emails each week.
Spring Clean: Made a good dent on this in March but have about a third of the list to go. There is something really satisfying about the cleaning tasks that only happen once or twice a year as opposed to the daily grind of doing dishes and sweeping floors.
Organize/Back Up Photos: Not the progress here that I had hoped due to technology issues. Brainstorming fixes for this and will probably be playing a ton of catch up this summer, but thousands of pictures are sorted and caught up through 2021 holidays now (and considering how many fall break pictures we took that is an accomplishment!)
Catch Up on Family Yearbook: Progress not perfection- finished our 2021 pages but still have not even started 2022. I think because this year has been HARD so far and figuring out how to accurately represent the struggle vs the resilience vs the moment of joy and bright spots is just more than my brain can handle right now.
This beautiful picture is from our current least favorite national park… but more on that in a future post…
MARCH WEEKLY GOALS
1 on 1 Family Time: Most weeks this happened and it is truly stunning what a difference it makes in the moods of everyone, but especially in behaviors from my littles. Definitely carrying this over to next month.
Observe the Sabbath: Yes and no. Usually we started well with a family and faith focused Sunday morning but then we always end up cramming in projects and to-do lists and not really embracing rest and FUN. WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR ME?! Hoping to re-set the rhythms a bit once the school year ends.
Hiking: Most weeks this happened. But it is getting hot so the trails weren’t as long as I’d have liked. Enjoyed the views though and the spring break hikes were particularly memorable… in both difficult and wonderful ways depending on the hike lol.
Write: The weekends bookending spring break this was a challenge and I didn’t get as much done as I hoped. I even skipped posting a new blog the week of spring break to focus on planning our trip.
Meal Prep: Overall this went well. We found some lunch recipes that are really working for my husband and me. Sadly the kids aren’t fans so we’ll keep some of them in rotations and keep trying a few more new options.
MARCH DAILY GOALS
Write the Word/Lenten Prayer: As far as my actual lenten practice of Bible journaling, I will be honest this has been extremely hit and miss. Like 50/50 which from a straight up numbers perspective is maybe the “worst” lent I’ve had in a while… but I have been growing and learning a lot and spending a lot of time in prayer of various forms.
Sips & Steps: I reallllly fell off the hydration wagon when the Run With Aim season ended but going to pick it back up and the spring season just started so that should help!
Yoga or Strength Work: Aside from spring break I did one or the other most days! Hoping to build on this and combine this work next month.
10 Minutes of Music: This was the ball that just totally dropped this month. I lost some of the progress I made the first two months of the year and just had a really hard time finding a good spot in the day where I felt like I could drop everything else and make some noise (hard when your partner is working from home still and then kiddos are on different sleep schedules etc.!)
Morning Routine: Had a weirdly difficult time with mornings this month but I can still see progress over the last few months.
Evening Routine: For how hit and miss my mornings were, I am averaging hitting my evening routine 5x a week which is A HUGE improvement and the most consistent it has EVER been. Having a mini goal within this routine of setting the phone out of the room and listening to a sleep meditation really helped me solidify a lot of this!
On to April… aka what the rest of the world thinks of as full on Spring while us Phoenicians consider it early summer because our temps have already hit mid 90s…
APRIL MONTHLY GOALS:
Plan and celebrate Holy Week/ Easter: Maybe because my Lenten practice has been about 50/50 (see above) but Easter feels like it is coming in the blink of an eye and I can’t believe it! Lots to figure out with how our family wants to observe Holy Week this year and what Easter traditions we may want to start in the new house.
Plan May Celebration Central: May is a busy month for our family. So April is always kicking planning for those celebrations into high gear. It is an extra big year this year with a big anniversary and end of school celebrations tentatively being back in person.
Family Brainstorm for Summer: This is the month where all the summer camp and lesson sign ups happen and since May is so busy, April is also the time when we make our traditional “summer bucket list” which the kids LOVE figuring out together.
Finish Spring Cleaning: See March re-cap
Finish Photo Catch Up: I have to finish up 2021 backups and then figure out a new system for 2022 which honestly just might involve needing to upgrade some technology in our home that has stopped correctly syncing. I also need to print off a few more pictures for some empty frames we have… (Friendly reminder to print your favorite pictures once in a while so you can enjoy them off of a screen!)
roasting all the veggies until I no longer want to turn on my oven
APRIL WEEKLY GOALS:
Meal Prep/Try a Recipe: Meal Prep last month was a big success and this month we are also trying to do some bulk cooking to get ahead of the early summer temps when we can still stand hot meals for dinner but don’t necessarily want to cooke them/do more than reheat them. (As opposed to late summer temps where we basically just throw our hands up and resort to cereal, salad, and smoothies… anything to avoid any additional heat.)
Budget Check in/Family Meeting: We fell a little behind on this last month so back on the tending list it goes…
Photo Routine: I was doing SO WELL this fall and then totally fell off the wagon so hoping to get back in the swing fo things so that the aforementioned photo catch up is no longer necessary
1 on 1 Time: See March re-cap!
Write: So much writing to do this month- finish up lenten journaling plus some personal journaling I’ve started doing again, another round of editing for our summer play, blog posts, maybe the beginnings of a new play if time permits?! really feeling the pull to write right now…
APRIL MONTHLY GOALS:
Strenght & Stretch: Basically yoga + some sort of strength 5 days a week is the goal here. Can be restorative yoga or flow classes, can be a ten minute arms or core or a 30 minute full bodyweight class, an even be doing some squats while holding my toddler, I just want to set some base strength training because I really let that slip during my higher mileage weeks of running and then I wanted some rest time last month- ready to get back to it so I can start my next training cycle strong! (OH, PS, did I mention I am going to try and RUN A MARATHON!?!?!?!?! I know, I sort of buried the lead there, but much more on that craziness in the months to come…)
Ready for Run With Aim spring season to start up because the accountability from my sole sisters was SO helpful with stuff like hydration!
Sips & Steps: I did not realize how much my hydration being on point had helped my body and brain until I stopped doing it! I also feel like my mood is a little out of wack since finishing my half marathon in February and significantly dropping my weekly mileage so whether its walking or running or some other form of movement I want to get that step count back up and see how that helps my brain!
Morning Routine: Hoping to come back strong with this.
Evening Routine: Hoping to keep the momentum going with this. Definitely keeping the sleep meditations several nights a week.
Music Time: See March’s re-cap. Hopefully this month I’ll get back on track.
Read Aloud Time: It is just the sweetest way to connect with the kids. The only hard thing is that they are definitely the age span where different kids want very different kinds of books
Sleep Goals/Screen Limits: An ongoing struggle. While I have become a lot better about screens before bed, I still spend a lot more time on my phone around the kids than I’d like and I want to work on intentionally batching time in front of screens in general and then leaving lots of screen free time in my day. The sleep is a trickier issue because it FEELS out of my control when I have insomnia kick in, but going to do my best to focus on the “sleep hygiene” I CAN control!
Alphabet Resolutions 